


Broken Bones

by orphan_account



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: And later nonbinary, Gender-Neutral Pronouns for Pidge | Katie Holt, M/M, Pidge starts female, Shiro (Voltron) Has PTSD - Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Then transitions to male, Transgender Pidge
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-13
Updated: 2017-11-13
Packaged: 2019-02-01 19:30:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 9
Words: 20,642
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12711462
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: A teen's family members go missing on a mission to Kerberos, while looking for their family the  teen finds a different type of family.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Pidge is 16, Shiro is 18, Keith, Lance and Hunk are 17.

It was a cold Tuesday night, Katie sat in her bedroom playing with her thumbs. "They... They're okay," she whispered to herself, alone in her dark bedroom. The moonlight shone through her window despite having heavy drapes on it to block out the sun. The white moonlight cast ghostly shadows on the sixteen year old's scared face. "They're going to call us later tonight and it'll all be okay." Her father and brother hadn't called in two days, as each day passed her mother and her had grown increasingly more tense.

Hearing her mother gasp from the living room snapped Katie out of her thoughts. Katie could tell something was wrong, but it was past midnight. There was no way in Hell her mom would like her being up this late. She walked out of her room and to the stairs, the entire house was dark, aside from the light illuminating her mother's horrified face from the news channel on the tv.

"Three space explorers have been reported missing from the wreckage of their space mission to Kerberos. Commander Samuel Holt, his son Matthew Holt and their fellow astronaut, Takashi Shirogane were confirmed missing earlier today-" Katie couldn't stand to listen to anymore of the broadcast.

Her dad and brother were _gone_ and the Galaxy Garrison hadn't called to tell them that themselves? Katie shook her head as a thought passed through it; _There's something more going on here and I'm going to get to the bottom of it._

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Breakfast the next morning was even more silent than before, Katie and her mother couldn't bare to look at each other. They were both ashamed to admit it, but they had grown accustomed to it only being the two of them (and the family dog, Gunther). The fact that two of their family members might never eat with them again sat cold in their stomachs. Katie couldn't bare to look at her mom, the familiar features that were also worn on her brother that helped when she missed him instead reminded her of a person who might as well be dead. And her mom couldn't look at her without seeing both her missing husband and son that Katie resembled remarkably.

After a full plate of breakfast yet still having an empty feeling in her stomach, Katie got up without a word and went to wash her plate.

The school year at the Galaxy Garrison was starting again in a week. Matt and her dad were supposed to be home in three months, instead Katie was wondering if they would ever come home again. Katie had a whole week to sit alone in her room at her computer, researching space and trying to find any sort of information about her family members and the other guy on the space mission with them. A whole week of her and her mom ignoring each other, getting no sleep, and eating hardly anything. Most of the week was spent in darkness, the only noise being Gunther occasionally barking or the clicking of his paws on the hardwood floors while Katie taped the keys on her computer. *

On the day Katie was finally sent off to the Galaxy Garrison, the only thing her mom told her was, "I love you Katie. Be good, please just-" her mom leaned down to give her a hug, "don't get in too much trouble. Okay?" Katie shook her head before giving her mom one last hug and rushing to the high school, duffel bag bouncing on her back.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

It was hard to focus in the classes between knowing that she could be this close to finding out what happened to the guys on the Kerberos mission and the sympathetic glances she got from kids she passed in the hallway. Katie soon found out that it was common knowledge that she was the younger sister and daughter of two of the missing men.

Nobody at the school would talk to her, unless she talked to them first. Aside from some awkward, short conversations and talk about class projects, Katie didn't talk to anybody. The routine of waking up every morning at the same time, eating similar things for every meal and going through the day passed the days into blurs. There was hardly any deviation from the same things every single day.

That was until one night when Katie was sitting up on the roof, she caught a signal that was being fed into the main computer at the Garrison. It was a single file with a single document in it, upon opening it Katie's mouth hung open.

**KERBEROS MISSION:**

**STATUS: failed**

**CADETS: 2 missing, 1 serious condition**

The rest of the file was missing but Katie _knew_ there was more to it. There _had_ to be. "That could be Matt or my dad," she whispered to herself. A soft breeze blew her hair and some of the dirt from the dark dessert casting heavy shadows from the moonlight. A sudden thought came to Katie and she slapped her head for not thinking of it before. "The computers!" She gathered all her equipment into her dark green bag before rushing back to the girl's dorm and hopping into her bunk.

What she had planned would have to wait for tomorrow.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

"What are you doing in here?!" yelled the teacher who the office Katie was using belonged to.

_Shit_.

"I-" Katie looked around quickly, trying to think of a plausible excuse as to why she might be using a teacher's computer in a (previously) locked office with random tech equipment strewn around her, "-I heard someone in the hallway bragging about installing a virus onto the computers here and I wanted to get rid of it before it harmed any of the technology here!"

The teacher looked Katie up and down, not sure whether she could believe Katie or not. Thinking fast Katie dragged a file from one of her USBs that contained spyware onto the computer so her lie would be a bit more believable. "Get. Out." The teacher took the wires and USBs connected to her computer out and shoved them into Katie's hands before shoving her out of the office and locking the door.

Katie looked around the hall, there didn't seem to be anyone near so she booked it to the dorm, wires whipping through the air behind her. She sat down at one of the tables in the far corner and carefully laid her equipment around her to sort through all the information she had gotten from the teacher's computer.

**Files[new] (3092)**

**Photos[new] (436)**

**Folders[new] (1035)**

**Apps[new] (153)**

***no malware detected***

Using control+f Katie did a quick look through most of the files for anything concerning the words, "Kerberos" "Matt" "Matthew" "Holt" "Sam" "Samuel" "Takashi" "Shirogane" "Missing" "Dead" or "Wounded". This narrowed it down quite a bit.

**Files (603)**

**Photos (436)**

**Folders (18)**

**Apps (1)**

***no malware detected***

The remaining app was a game about Pluto so Katie removed it from the computer. She figured she could look through the pictured later that day when everyone was asleep rather than at lunch.

That night when looking through the pictures, she found that there was nothing that she cared about enough to look at.

Leaning her head back to look at the stars to where she knew the three missing people were, she knew she had a daunting task ahead of herself.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

"Katelyn Holt, report to Commander Iverson's office," a voice crackles over the intercom interrupting the lesson the teacher was in the middle of instructing. Katie's blood runs cold as all of the previously bored-out-of-their-mind kids turn their calculating glares to Katie.

"Take your things with you," the teacher doesn't even move their gaze from the board as they talk to Katie, "you can come by after class to get the rest of the notes or get them from a frien- classmate." The teacher almost says "friend" but stops because it's common knowledge that Katie Holt, younger sister of Matt and daughter of Sam Holt, does not have "friends".

Katie gathers her papers in her backpack before walking out of the classroom. She's in trouble, they know she was hacking into the computer, she's going to be expelled now. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

Katie took a deep breath as she approached Commander Iverson's office. She took another deep breath as she pushed open the door to see Commander Iverson and the teacher who's computer she had hacked sitting in chairs, waiting for Katie.

"H-Hi," Katie's voice cracks, betraying the cool facade she was trying to keep up.

"Sit down," Commander Iverson said in his gruff, angry voice. Katie nodded and sat down in the chair across the desk from Commander Iverson and the teacher. "So it sounds like you were found on Professor Montgomery's computer, correct?"

"Y-yeah," Katie's voice sounds shaky and quiet while she nods vigorously, her hair waving around.

"We looked into it and there appeared to be rather advanced spyware on her computer. It was hidden fairly well but..." Commander Iverson took a deep breath, "...If you hadn't told Professor Montgomery about it, valuable documents on her computer could have been compromised. You're being let off the hook for being caught on her computer because of this." Katie looked up at them quickly, they looked sincere and Katie breathed out for what felt like the first time in forever. "Who was the student who installed it on the computer?"

"I-" Katie swallowed hard, her stomach jumping into her throat, "I don't kn-know..."

"She said that she heard someone in the hallway say it," Professor Montgomery jumps in, "there's a good chance she couldn't discern who it was that said it." Katie nods her head, happy that she didn't have to make something up.

"You're free to go," Commander Iverson stated. Katie thanked them before sprinting out of the office and down the hallway as fast as she could.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

"What are you doing in here?!" Commander Iverson yelled at Katie who was hunched over his computer transferring files from his computer to hers.

Fuck, not again.

"Th-the virus th-that was on Professor Montgomery's computer was transferred via cloud to my computer and I-I wanted to m-make sure that the school was safe..." Katie trailed off as Commander Iverson bounded over to the computer before ripping the wires and USBs out of his computer and gripping Katie by the back of her shirt and carrying her out of his office.

"You are being expelled, this is the third time you've been caught sneaking into a staff member's office!" Commander Iverson yelled, his face turning red.

"You can't keep me from learning the truth!" Katie yelled back. "I know there's something going on and I'm going to get to the bottom of it!"

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Katie sat alone in her room typing away at her computer, bent on trying to scrounge out any information from the Garrison that she was able to get. There was no point in leaving her room now, other than the bathroom Katie had everything she needed in her room. Cans of discarded Mountain Dew and Doctor Pepper sat beside empty hot pocket wrappers and Doritos bags.

Katie's mom had picked her up from school wordlessly, a disappointed scowl on her face. It wasn't until they had gotten back home that her mom said anything to her. "Katie. I know that this can't be easy for you," her mom tried a tender smile but it came looking forced as she walked into the living room where she sat herself in front of the tv, "but you need to stop acting out. I have just as much going on as you, if not more." Katie shook her head and started up the stairs. "That came out wrong," her mom called to her as she ignored her, tossing the duffle bag onto her bed.

Katie assumed that she had been signed up to start high school at one of the local schools when the next semester began, which was two months away.

So far the only information Katie had been able to find were a few documents about the schematics of the ship that was taken to Kerberos by the three pilots.

Being expelled from school was tearing at Katie, her mom's silence was unsettling rather than painful now. Katie desperately tried to think of a way that she could get back into the Garrison. Set up a really big satellite and hack into their system was an option but a very impractical one. Katie knew that if it came down to it, that was something she would do.

As she typed away at the computer, a blank look on her face a thought popped into her head. What if it wasn't _me_ who entered the school?


	2. Chapter 2

Katie- Pidge(if he was going to do this, he had to do it right) set the letter on the bed. He gave the house one last look before hopping out of the window and sliding down the roof to the ground. He had to rush to a bus stop a few blocks down the road before his mom heard him and came to inspect the noise.

He sat at the bus stop, knowing that the bus was scheduled to come in less than fifteen minutes. The bus would lead downtown where Pidge would board another bus that lead out of the city to the next town over. From there Pidge would board another bus that lead from the city to another city three towns over. After that, Pidge had to walk the rest of the way to the school. The walk from the last town to school would be a little less than a mile so he wasn't too worried about getting exhausted from it.

As the bus pulled up, Pidge couldn't help but feel bad about his mother. She would wake up on the couch(she hardly ever got up from it) then wait for Pidge to come down the stairs for breakfast(a bag of chips and a soda). When Pidge didn't appear she would eventually climb the stairs to find a note where her daughter(son?) should be. Pidge wasn't sure if his mom would find him only an hour after when he usually came down to grab food for the rest of the day or if it wouldn't be till two days later when he was supposed to start a local school under the name of Katelyn Holt.

Pidge took a deep breath and hiked his brother's bag further up his back as he walked onto the bus. There were only two other people on the bus at this hour, both of them looked to be adults. Pidge sat closer to the front of the bus, away from the other two people.

As he laid his head against the cold window and watched the street lights that the bus passed, his thoughts went back to his mom. The note he left didn't explain everything he was doing, if it did his mom would try to stop him.

_Mom,_

_I'm going to be gone for a while. I'm not sure how long I'll be gone for but I'll come back as soon as I can. I had something to do, it'll take a while for me to finish it and if the government happens to show up at the door asking about me or birds, tell them all that you know ie nothing._

_-Katie_

His mom probably deserved more than that but... The part about the government wasn't exactly a lie anyway. The two months he had to prepare for returning to the Galaxy Garrison were spent well.

He had faked his medical records to enroll himself in the school as an orphan so there wouldn't be questions when he didn't go home for holidays or have a parent for teachers to call when he (inevitably) got in trouble.

His chest was naturally flat enough that he didn't need a binder and after a haircut in the upstairs bathroom and swapping his contact lenses for glasses, he looked almost exactly like a small version of Matt. It was hard to look at his reflection in the bathroom mirror.

Between the steps of getting ready to get back into the Galaxy Garrison Pidge was busy hacking away at the computer trying to find any more information about the Kerberos mission.

So yeah, two months (half a year if you count the hacking before hand too) of illegal activity. There was a pretty good chance the government was going to show up at his house.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

The walk to the school didn't seem too bad in theory, it wasn't even a full mile, but somehow it seemed to go on forever. His back pack seemed impossibly heavy, his feet impossibly slow and the dessert-type environment impossibly empty. In the very distance Pidge could make out the outline of the school and just behind him was town.

As he trudged his way to the school, the sun had already begun to rise when he boarded the second bus, so by now it was high in the sky. Pidge was supposed to arrive at school sometime that day, as the school was supposed to start the next day. The thought of having to walk all the way to school from where he currently stood felt stupid. Why had he even thought that this was a good idea in the first place?

The Galaxy Garrison got bigger and the sun got hotter. The distance got shorter and Pidge's patience followed suit.

In reality it only took about seventeen minutes to walk to the school, but it felt like forever to Pidge who had not had a decent night's sleep in years let alone actually slept in about three days. At this point, Pidge was running on borrowed time. And Mountain Dew.

"F-finally!" Pidge half-heartedly cheered as he entered the school's front door.

"Sir," called a woman sitting at the office desk across the room from Pidge. Pidge slowly turned his head to look at the woman, afraid that she'd recognised his face and was about to call the police.

"Y-yeah?" Pidge's voice cracked and he wanted to punch himself in the face. The lady beckoned him over to her with two fingers. "Well fuck," Pidge whispered under his breath and he walked to the lady. Only two steps into the building and he was already caught.

The spot right in front of the desk had an air vent directly above it, which only added to the cold chills running down Pidge's spine.

"Name?" the lady asked Pidge. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

"Pi-Pidge Gunder-Gunderson," Pidge tried to say it evenly but a bubble started to rise in his stomach causing him to slip over the words. The lady wrinkled her eyebrows together as she entered something into her computer.

"Second year, huh?" Pidge nodded his head at that. It was true, he looked like a 12 year old boy but at least he passed (somewhat). "Okay..." the lady kept reading what was on her monitor before finally looking up at Pidge. "So because this is your first year here we're going to assign you a team and they're going to show you around the school." Pidge nodded while the lady printed something off of the computer. "This is your class schedule and a map of the school, tomorrow in your first hour you should get a school handbook/planner combo. Use it, you'll need it," the lady winked she handed Pidge the paper and shooed him off to help a different student who had just entered the building.

"Thank God," Pidge breathed out before heading in the direction of the girl's dormitory. Just before he entered it, he remembered that he was no longer a girl. A heavy blush spread on his face as he walked away from the dorm and towards the boy's dormitory.

"Dude, I swear to God it's true!" Pidge heard someone say as soon as he walked into the dorm. It looked exactly like girl's dorm, except instead of girls everywhere there were guys.

"Lance, you did not get her number, I was with you the whole time!" another voice complained.

There seemed to be about ten boys spread around the room, four of them were next to Pidge's bed (number 34). A tallish skinny hispanic-looking boy was sitting on the bottom bunk of the bed right next to Pidge's bed while a larger dark-skinned boy was standing next to him. On the other side of the bed was a medium height boy who seemed to be asian, wore glasses and had a shaggy-emo-looking haircut, the other guy was a tall, muscular white dude who had light hair, dark eyes and a pissed off look on his face.

"Hunk!" exclaimed the hispanic-looking boy to the larger boy. "I did too get her number! You just were probably throwing up when it happened." The two random boys laughed at this while the guy who Pidge assumed was Hunk blushed and tried to come up with a retort.

Pidge tried to ignore the four of them as he squeezed past Hunk to get to his bed. For some Godforsaken reason Pidge was given a top bunk. Was there no God? As Pidge climbed the ladder to his bed he noticed that the four boys were watching him.

"What?" Pidge asked, a little too viciously than it should have been asked.

"You're new here?" the hispanic-looking boy asked.

"Yeah. Why do you care?" The boy looked a little taken-aback by Pidge's bluntness.

"Well, it's just that that's the bunk of the new guy for our team," Hunk cut in. "Are you Pidge Gunderson?" Hunk asked.

"Yes."

"Cool!" the hispanic-looking boy jumped out of the bunk bed and reached up to shake Pidge's hand, "I'm Lance!" Pidge nodded and looked down to start going through their bag, ignoring the hand Lance had outstretched to him.

"Dude," the asian-looking boy said to Lance, "they might have anxiety or something, don't pressure them into going out of their comfort zone." The white dude next to him nodded along. Pidge accidentally started shipping the two of them together.

"It's he, by the way," Pidge said to the boy.

"Okay. I'm a transguy myself and I always use gender neutral pronouns, so please don't feel offended."

"That's cool." Pidge turned to look at Lance, "I'm fine with people, I just have stuff I need to do."

"Okay." Lance hopped off the side of the bunkbed before returning to his bed and continuing his story to the three guys.

Pidge was back at the Galaxy Garrison and was ready to get to the bottom of where the Kerberos Cadets had gone.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

The first week of school at the Galaxy Garrison was spent getting to know the guys, not only Lance and Hunk but also the other two guys and their groups of friends. Because Pidge wasn't Katelyn Holt, family member of the dead cadets, it was easier to talk to people. At night Pidge was busy setting up a station on the roof of the school, he was working on hooking up his computer to communicate with Commander Iverson's computer so he didn't have to sneak into his office so often to get information.

The two boys that Pidge had met we named Heath and Calvin, Heath was the asian emo-punk-nerd and Calvin was the white jock dude. Pidge had learned early on that the two of them were dating, they argued constantly but continuously supported each other. Heath refused to wear any colors other than blue and black outside of the uniform and Calvin was usually wearing a lot of red when he wasn't in the mandatory uniform.

Pidge trusted Heath with hacking help, while Pidge was good on his own, it always felt good to have someone to talk to about electronics. Calvin was more or less just there because he refused to leave Heath's side. Pidge wasn't sure if it was because he just really liked Heath or because Heath had a lot of anxiety so having Calvin helped him. Pidge was willing to bet it was both.

"How come you never hang out with us?" Lance asked Pidge as they got out of the pilot simulation. They had failed miserably (like always).

"I always have other things to do," Pidge answered, walking faster than Lance with Hunk following closely behind them.

"Yeah, but we have to do a team building exercise. Bond ya'know?" Lance looked behind himself at Hunk who nodded in agreement.

"Sure." Pidge ducked down a hallway and ran through a flight of stairs to throw Lance and Hunk off his tail. Lance and Hunk had nothing to offer to finding his dad and brother so there wasn't really any point in befriending them. Plus, Pidge was fairly certain that he was going to be kicked out of the school any day now.

Pidge looked at a sign to figure out where in the school he was, the months of sneaking around the school before he was expelled were spent well because the memory of the school's layout was quickly returning to him. He had to take two lefts and a right to get to the cafeteria where his friends would be waiting for him.

Taking the necessary route to the cafeteria Pidge easily found Heath and Calvin waiting at a four person table by themselves. As Pidge approached, he was able to hear the current topic of discussion between the two boys.

"But after six eggs you should throw up," Calvin said, disgust clearly on his face.

"You would think so, but I ate twelve." Heath had a serious look on his own face as he shoved food from his plate into his face.

"No," Calvin disagreed, "that's literally impossible. You would get salmonella or food poisoning or something by then."

Heath shook his head fast, his hair waving around wildly, "See, I thought that that would happen too but it didn't. I was able to eat twelve of them raw before I threw up and my brother called 911."

"Why'd he call 911?"

"There might have been blood that came up with the raw eggs." Heath's face broke the stoic look for half a second while he smirked.

"That's not funny. If you threw up blood it was not because of the raw eggs. There's something wrong with you." Calvin's face had concern written all over it as Pidge sat across from them.

"Hey-o!" Heath greeted offering the rest of his food to Pidge. Pidge declined while they waited for the two of them to continue the conversation. Instead Heath asked, "Have you finished the virus yet?"

"Yeah." Pidge rummaged through their pockets for the flash drive that held the virus on it. "Here," Pidge handed Heath the drive when he finally found the right one.

"Thanks. Me and Calvin are going to use it to prank our third hour teacher." Heath snickered at the thought of installing a virus onto his teacher's computer that cause Cotton Eye Joe to play at full volume on a loop for ten minutes before switching to the Witch Doctor for ten more minutes.

"Is that the one that failed me last semester?" Calvin asked Heath.

"Yes. But it's fine, this isn't a revenge thing." Calvin nodded his head, not sure if believed Heath or not.

"Anyway," Pidge interrupted them, "I have to be going now." The clock said that lights out was in less than fifteen minutes so he had to act fast to rush to the roof before caught him in the hallways. Why did Heath and Calvin spend every free second of their time in the cafeteria?

Pidge had one close call with a security guy on the way to the roof but otherwise it was fine.

On the roof, Pidge put on his headphone to listen for the Galaxy Garrison radio. When he finally was able to find it he heard something that made his blood run cold. He reached down for a pad of paper and pen to jot down what he heard.

_Bring him in- Sedate him if you have to- Find the the prosthetic and get it on him- That's a lot of blood- What's his name- Takashi Shirogane-_

Pidge felt one side of his headphones lift up as a warm breath brushed his ear and he heard someone say, "What'cha doin' up here?" 


	3. Chapter 3

Pidge woke up to the sound of Lance shouting… or singing? Pidge rubbed at his eyes, the sun shone brightly into the room from the square window. After a small heart attack, Pidge remembered he was in Keith’s house… shack… thing… and jumped up to go kill Lance.

“Sigo cantando con las puertas abiertas!” Pidge heard Lance shouting from outside the bedroom. Scowling, Pidge rolled the sleeping bag up and stacked it next to Lance and Hunk’s already rolled up sleeping bags. Turning his head to each side, Pidge heard cracking and leaned back to stretch out his back. Sleeping on the hard floor sucks man. At least it was warm.

“Atravesando todas estas tierras y no hay!” Pidge rolled his eyes as he picked his glasses off the hardwood flooring of the bedroom. Why is it hardwood and not carpet? Pidge leaned down to swing his bag onto his back and slipped on his shoes that sat next to the door. Leaving his hair alone (because let’s face it, he can try with all his might, that hair isn’t going to look any better than it does after sleeping) he opened the door leading to the rest of the house.

“Que viajar tanto pa encontrar la respuesta!” Lance had no right to being singing this loud this early in the morning. Shiro and Hunk sat on the couch, talking about something or other with smiles on their faces while Lance stood in the kitchen, swaying his hips to the tune he was singing. Lance moved around the kitchen with twirls, apparently Lance was cooking breakfast? Keith stood next to the fridge, his arms crossed and wearing a scowl that matched Pidge’s… Except it looked like he was trying not to smile.

“Y no te preocupes si no te aprueban cuando te critiquen tu solo di!” Oh how Pidge wanted to tell Lance off for waking him from his slumber… But… His ships! It was so cute. Just Lance and Keith cooking breakfast together… kind of… No! Pidge had to yell at somebody.

“Soy yo!” Pidge took a deep breath and walked through the living room-kitchen towards the outside. Lance and Keith could have their moment. Pidge made sure, however, to slam the door on his way out of the house.

Pidge walked to the side of the house that cast the most shade and sat himself down. He pulled off his bag and set it next to himself, he unzipped the bag and pulled out his laptop. After connecting straight to Commander Iverson’s router and computer via cloud there wasn’t much more information he could pull from them. He was so far from the school by now that there was no way he’d be able to connect to the Garrison’s computers… Unless he build a giant satellite.

There were a lot of files and pictures to root through still, and there was the problem with school. He, Lance, Hunk and Keith had technically kidnapped Shrio. So there was a very good chance Pidge was expelled, if not under government surveillance whenever he was to return to the grid. Wow, expelled from the same school twice. That has to be a record or something. Anyway, he was going to have to ask Keith about what type of wifi surveillance he had around his house and what cautions he usually took when going online.

There was a lot to talk to Keith about.

With headphones on, Pidge was unable to hear the front door open and the footsteps of someone approaching. However, Pidge was able to see as the person sat next to Pidge in the shade. Pidge nearly jumped three feet when he noticed the person next to him, causing the headphones to fall off of his head.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you,” Shiro said bashfully rubbing the back of his neck. “I was just wonder what you were up to… Also,” Shiro leaned down to whisper as if anyone would hear him, “Lance’s singing was starting to get to me.” Shiro let out a deep laugh and Pidge decided that it okay Shiro sat next to him and there was no need for murder… This time…

“Ah, it’s fine. I’m not really doing anything,” Pidge quickly exited the fifteen plus tabs he had open before Shiro could see what he was really up to on his computer.

“What do you think of my arm?” Shiro asked, holding his right arm up to help gesture to it.

“Hmm,” Pidge paused to think about it. “It’s actually really interesting. I would like to know where you got it. It’s such advanced technology, considering the Garrison’s mediocre security you’d think that they wouldn’t be anywhere near getting their hands on something as advanced as this…” Pidge trailed off when he noticed Shrio smile smiling at him. “S-sorry, I got carried away, didn’t I?”

“Nah, it’s fine. I don’t really actually remember where I got it, to be completely honest.” Shiro shrugged his shoulders with a lopsided smile.

“Do you know where the other guys from the mission are?” Pidge let slip.

Shiro paused, his eyes widening slightly, “N-no. No I don’t.” He blinked harshly, his hands balling up slightly. Pidge regretting letting the question slip from his mouth, something had obviously happened, Pidge needed to know but he wasn’t about to force what it was out of Shiro.

“Okay,” Pidge turned back to his computer and began working on sorting the information he had recorded about Shiro’s arm. Thankfully, Shiro wasn’t looking at the computer screen, instead he was looking out at the horizon of heat and sand and light.

“You know,” Shiro said suddenly, startling Pidge slightly, “I kind of just wish that I knew where my team was... That I could remember where they went, rather than this big gaping hole of memory from what happened. It’s like,” Shiro paused to take a deep breath and blink, “imagine part of your life just being a blur… It’s right there, but I just can’t,” he reached his right arm up to mimic grasping something before dropping it sadly.

Pidge knew what he meant. The months between that moment and the night he heard of his family’s disappearance were hard to remember. “Yeah. I get that.” Pidge fully invested in Shiro's story at this point, he most likely knew something about Pidge’s family… but there was something more to it as well. While Pidge knew having Shiro was a huge step towards finding his family, Pidge couldn’t help but think that he had more feelings for Shiro than just that. These were thoughts for later that night when he was alone and contemplating his place his place in the universe, not thoughts to disrupt work during a very heartfelt outpouring of two boys who need somebody to love.

“You do?” Shiro asked, quirking an eyebrow at Pidge.

“Yeah,” Pidge nodded, setting his laptop to the side.

“How?” After a second Shiro rushed out, “If you don’t mind me asking, you don’t really have to answer if you don’t want to. It’s your business not mine and just because I shared a piece of myself with you I don’t expect you to share anything with me. Though, I wouldn’t mind if you did.” Shiro had a light blush forming on his face.

Pidge cracked a smile and said, “Let’s just say I’m missing two very important people to me and I’m still grieving over not having them with me.”

Shiro nodded, not expecting Pidge to continue with his thought. “That’s okay. You’re allowed to have as much time as you need to get over a loss. You could try talking to Keith sometime.” Keith?! Shiro had a solemn look on his face and nodded at Pidge’s surprised looking face. “He knows a lot about loss.”

“Keith?! Mr. I’m-So-Emo Keith?!” Shiro nodded again, a quiet chuckle coming from deep in his throat. “Mine isn’t so much of death, more just that the two people are… missing…” Shiro widened his eyes for a second and looked like he was about to say something before he shook his head and turned to look off into the distance.

“HEY! GUYS!” Lance shouted exiting the house. “Where are you two?!”

“Over here!” Shiro shouted while Pidge yelled, “Other side dumbass!”

“Get in here, breakfast is ready!” Pidge let out a heavy sigh before packing his electronics back into his bag and carrying to the house, Shiro in tow.

“It smells like smoke!” Pidge gagged as soon as he entered the house. Lance sent a deathly glare at Pidge from the couch.

“Lance burnt the first batch of food so Hunk took over,” Keith says, sitting next to Lance on the couch. Pidge smirked as he walked over to Hunk so Hunk could serve him.

“Thanks,” Pidge said as Hunk got a plate with eggs, toast and orange juice ready for him. Pidge joined Lance and Keith on the couch, his bag sitting next to his feet. Shiro ate standing up in the kitchen next to Hunk. Mm those shoulder could go for miles in either direction. “So, Keith,” Pidge prompted. Keith looked up momentarily at Pidge from the food to signal Pidge to continue. “Do you have chickens out here, or an orange tree?”

Keith took a second to swallow his food before saying, “Well there’s a town not too far from the Garrison that I sometimes go to for things I don’t grow out here. But there are a few chicke-”

“HOW MANY?!” Lance shouted, nearly choking on his food.

“Wh-what?” Keith asked, turning from Pidge to face Lance.

“How many chickens do you have?” Lance asked, sitting on the edge of his seat.

“Se-seven..?”

“Are you saying it in that tone because you’re unsure? If you’re unsure then we’re going and counting them!”

“No… I just don’t know why you want to know. I know for a fact there are seven hens.”

“Ugh, why?” Lance whined, Keith looked confused again. “I wanted to- Fuck it. Where are they?” Lance demanded.

“Nuh-uh!” Hunk said from the kitchen, “You’re staying here and finishing that plate of food. It’s like noon and that’s the first thing you’ve eaten all day.” Lance let out a very loud and long groan.

“At least tell me their names,” Lance mumbled, his mouth stuffed with the last few bites of his food.

“If you talk with your mouth full, you’re going to choke,” Shiro warned from across the room, in the kitchen area.

Pidge snickered before stuffing the last of his food into his mouth and flashing Shiro a smile, being sure that Shiro could see the food stuffed in his mouth. Shiro rolled his eyes and Hunk face-palmed.

“Why- Why do you want to know their names?” Keith asked in a wary tone of voice.

“So that I can address them accordingly, duh!” Pidge watched as Lance struggled to swallow his food. “C’mon! What are their names?!”

Keith let out a long sigh before saying, “Sae, Tsubasa, Gyelan and four unnamed chickens.”

“Sae?! Tsubasa?!” Lance coughed out between laughs, “What kind of names are those?!”

“Names for chickens, Lance.” Pidge could hear the eyeroll in Keith’s voice.

“They’re so stupid!” Lance leaned forward on his knees as he laughed at Keith’s chicken’s names.

“The only stupid thing here is you!” Keith shouted back at Lance.

“Calm down!” Shiro called to them. Both Lance and Keith turned to glare at Shiro.

“Why don’t you guys put your dishes away?” Hunk offered. Lance huffed as he got up to put his dish away. Keith ate the last bite of his food before he got up as well to put his plate away. “Keith, are you okay with it if Lance and I go see your chickens?” Hunk asked.

“Yeah, sure,” Keith replied before joining Pidge on the couch again. Lance’s face brightened up and he sent Hunk a bright smile.

“Let’s go!” he shouted tugging Hunk’s arm as the two of them raced out of the house.

Shiro joined Pidge and Keith on the couch, laughing the whole time he walked to them. “They’re pretty fun, huh?” he asked as he nudged Keith with his elbow.

Keith grumbled out a short reply that caused Shiro to laugh even harder.

“How do you two know each other?” Pidge asked after he had finally swallowed the food he’d shoved into his mouth earlier.

“Our parents,” came Keith’s short and to the point explanation.

“Both of our dad’s were involved with the Galaxy Garrison. Through that, Keith’s dad met his mom who was born into the Galaxy Garrison, I’ve never understood that, and my dad met my mom who was one of the ship navigators on a crew. She eventually ended up leading our dad’s on a mission. Sparing you all the boring details, all four of them are dead now and the two of us were enrolled in the Galaxy Garrison.” Shiro shot Keith a disapproving look at the “were enrolled” part.

“You literally only gave me the boring parts and spared me all the interesting ones, how’d they die?” Pidge was the edge of his seat, his dirty plate forgotten about on the coffee table.

“I guess I did,” Shiro laughed. Pidge watched as his eyes crinkled around the edges and his shoulders shook.

Noticing how Keith was looking at Pidge, like he knew something he shouldn’t, caused Pidge to avert his gaze around the room. His eyes stopped on the board leaning against the wall near the couch. The board had a blanket thrown on top of it so Pidge couldn’t see what it was.

“Hey, what’s that?” Pidge asked, pointing a finger towards the board.

“Well…” Keith trailed off as he got up to go uncover it. “I’m actually kind of glad you asked.” He ripped off the blanket in an overly animated style that would have made Pidge cringe if he hadn’t known Lance for long enough to be desensitized by antics like this. “Have you ever heard of Creepypasta?” Keith’s face had a evil glint to it.

“Yes I have, and might I add, you’re like, what? Seventeen?” Shiro snorted at this remark, when Keith shot a glare his way he tried to play it off a cough.

“Yeah, seventeen. But that doesn’t matter. You’re like, what? Twelve? Shouldn’t you be overly obsessed with them?” Keith shot back.

“Sixteen, you ass. And I was, four years ago,” Pidge said with an eye roll.

“Anyway,” Keith continued, “I’ve been collecting information on them to find them. They’re real, dude, look at this!” Keith pointed in the general direction of the board, not highlighting any specific place to look.

“Psht, that’s nothing,” Pidge scoffed. He pulled out his laptop to open up his documents on the Kerberos mission. “Look at this.”

Pidge watched as Keith looked through the year’s work of hacking and coding, the laptop angled in a way so Pidge and Keith could see it but Shiro couldn’t. “Whoa…” Keith looked through all the files and documents and pictures accumulated around the disappearance of the ship and where it and the pilots might possibly be. “How long did it take you to do this?” he asked, the wonder clear in his eyes.

“About a year,” Pidge said proudly.

“That,” Keith points to his board, “took me about seven months. I’m not even where you were after just a month. What the Hell?” he looked from the laptop up at Shiro. “Dude, come look at this.”

Shiro furrowed his brows as he got up to look at Pidge’s laptop. “What- Wait… It this the Kerberos mission?” he asked as he looked over Keith’s shoulder.

“Uhm… yes?” Pidge said, suddenly feeling very small… Or smaller than usual.

“How did you get all of this information. Most of this is either very intimate or confidential.” Pidge started squirming in his seat, feeling both of the boys’ eyes on himself. “Did you-” Shiro lowered his voice, and looked around the room before continuing, “Did you hack into the Galaxy Garrison to get this?”

Pidge sucked in a breath before rushing the words out, “Maybe, but that’s really something that needs to be answered, you know?”

“Holy shit, you’re good!” Keith exclaimed looking from the screen. “This would require hardcore skills, you’re the best hacker I’ve ever seen!”

Pidge felt a surge of pride at that and smiled to himself.

“Why were you even researching the Kerberos mission?” Shiro asked causing Pidge’s smile to falter into a panicked expression.


	4. Chapter 4

Pidge woke up to the sound of Lance shouting… or singing? Pidge rubbed at his eyes, the sun shone brightly into the room from the square window. After a small heart attack, Pidge remembered he was in Keith’s house… shack… thing… and jumped up to go kill Lance.

“Sigo cantando con las puertas abiertas!” Pidge heard Lance shouting from outside the bedroom. Scowling, Pidge rolled the sleeping bag up and stacked it next to Lance and Hunk’s already rolled up sleeping bags. Turning his head to each side, Pidge heard cracking and leaned back to stretch out his back. Sleeping on the hard floor sucks man. At least it was warm.

“Atravesando todas estas tierras y no hay!” Pidge rolled his eyes as he picked his glasses off the hardwood flooring of the bedroom. Why is it hardwood and not carpet? Pidge leaned down to swing his bag onto his back and slipped on his shoes that sat next to the door. Leaving his hair alone (because let’s face it, he can try with all his might, that hair isn’t going to look any better than it does after sleeping) he opened the door leading to the rest of the house.

“Que viajar tanto pa encontrar la respuesta!” Lance had no right to being singing this loud this early in the morning. Shiro and Hunk sat on the couch, talking about something or other with smiles on their faces while Lance stood in the kitchen, swaying his hips to the tune he was singing. Lance moved around the kitchen with twirls, apparently Lance was cooking breakfast? Keith stood next to the fridge, his arms crossed and wearing a scowl that matched Pidge’s… Except it looked like he was trying not to smile.

“Y no te preocupes si no te aprueban cuando te critiquen tu solo di!” Oh how Pidge wanted to tell Lance off for waking him from his slumber… But… His ships! It was so cute. Just Lance and Keith cooking breakfast together… kind of… No! Pidge had to yell at somebody.

“Soy yo!” Pidge took a deep breath and walked through the living room-kitchen towards the outside. Lance and Keith could have their moment. Pidge made sure, however, to slam the door on his way out of the house.

Pidge walked to the side of the house that cast the most shade and sat himself down. He pulled off his bag and set it next to himself, he unzipped the bag and pulled out his laptop. After connecting straight to Commander Iverson’s router and computer via cloud there wasn’t much more information he could pull from them. He was so far from the school by now that there was no way he’d be able to connect to the Garrison’s computers… Unless he build a giant satellite.

There were a lot of files and pictures to root through still, and there was the problem with school. He, Lance, Hunk and Keith had technically kidnapped Shrio. So there was a very good chance Pidge was expelled, if not under government surveillance whenever he was to return to the grid. Wow, expelled from the same school twice. That has to be a record or something. Anyway, he was going to have to ask Keith about what type of wifi surveillance he had around his house and what cautions he usually took when going online.

There was a lot to talk to Keith about.

With headphones on, Pidge was unable to hear the front door open and the footsteps of someone approaching. However, Pidge was able to see as the person sat next to Pidge in the shade. Pidge nearly jumped three feet when he noticed the person next to him, causing the headphones to fall off of his head.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you,” Shiro said bashfully rubbing the back of his neck. “I was just wonder what you were up to… Also,” Shiro leaned down to whisper as if anyone would hear him, “Lance’s singing was starting to get to me.” Shiro let out a deep laugh and Pidge decided that it okay Shiro sat next to him and there was no need for murder… This time…

“Ah, it’s fine. I’m not really doing anything,” Pidge quickly exited the fifteen plus tabs he had open before Shiro could see what he was really up to on his computer.

“What do you think of my arm?” Shiro asked, holding his right arm up to help gesture to it.

“Hmm,” Pidge paused to think about it. “It’s actually really interesting. I would like to know where you got it. It’s such advanced technology, considering the Garrison’s mediocre security you’d think that they wouldn’t be anywhere near getting their hands on something as advanced as this…” Pidge trailed off when he noticed Shrio smile smiling at him. “S-sorry, I got carried away, didn’t I?”

“Nah, it’s fine. I don’t really actually remember where I got it, to be completely honest.” Shiro shrugged his shoulders with a lopsided smile.

“Do you know where the other guys from the mission are?” Pidge let slip.

Shiro paused, his eyes widening slightly, “N-no. No I don’t.” He blinked harshly, his hands balling up slightly. Pidge regretting letting the question slip from his mouth, something had obviously happened, Pidge needed to know but he wasn’t about to force what it was out of Shiro.

“Okay,” Pidge turned back to his computer and began working on sorting the information he had recorded about Shiro’s arm. Thankfully, Shiro wasn’t looking at the computer screen, instead he was looking out at the horizon of heat and sand and light.

“You know,” Shiro said suddenly, startling Pidge slightly, “I kind of just wish that I knew where my team was... That I could remember where they went, rather than this big gaping hole of memory from what happened. It’s like,” Shiro paused to take a deep breath and blink, “imagine part of your life just being a blur… It’s right there, but I just can’t,” he reached his right arm up to mimic grasping something before dropping it sadly.

Pidge knew what he meant. The months between that moment and the night he heard of his family’s disappearance were hard to remember. “Yeah. I get that.” Pidge fully invested in Shiro's story at this point, he most likely knew something about Pidge’s family… but there was something more to it as well. While Pidge knew having Shiro was a huge step towards finding his family, Pidge couldn’t help but think that he had more feelings for Shiro than just that. These were thoughts for later that night when he was alone and contemplating his place his place in the universe, not thoughts to disrupt work during a very heartfelt outpouring of two boys who need somebody to love.

“You do?” Shiro asked, quirking an eyebrow at Pidge.

“Yeah,” Pidge nodded, setting his laptop to the side.

“How?” After a second Shiro rushed out, “If you don’t mind me asking, you don’t really have to answer if you don’t want to. It’s your business not mine and just because I shared a piece of myself with you I don’t expect you to share anything with me. Though, I wouldn’t mind if you did.” Shiro had a light blush forming on his face.

Pidge cracked a smile and said, “Let’s just say I’m missing two very important people to me and I’m still grieving over not having them with me.”

Shiro nodded, not expecting Pidge to continue with his thought. “That’s okay. You’re allowed to have as much time as you need to get over a loss. You could try talking to Keith sometime.” Keith?! Shiro had a solemn look on his face and nodded at Pidge’s surprised looking face. “He knows a lot about loss.”

“Keith?! Mr. I’m-So-Emo Keith?!” Shiro nodded again, a quiet chuckle coming from deep in his throat. “Mine isn’t so much of death, more just that the two people are… missing…” Shiro widened his eyes for a second and looked like he was about to say something before he shook his head and turned to look off into the distance.

“HEY! GUYS!” Lance shouted exiting the house. “Where are you two?!”

“Over here!” Shiro shouted while Pidge yelled, “Other side dumbass!”

“Get in here, breakfast is ready!” Pidge let out a heavy sigh before packing his electronics back into his bag and carrying to the house, Shiro in tow.

“It smells like smoke!” Pidge gagged as soon as he entered the house. Lance sent a deathly glare at Pidge from the couch.

“Lance burnt the first batch of food so Hunk took over,” Keith says, sitting next to Lance on the couch. Pidge smirked as he walked over to Hunk so Hunk could serve him.

“Thanks,” Pidge said as Hunk got a plate with eggs, toast and orange juice ready for him. Pidge joined Lance and Keith on the couch, his bag sitting next to his feet. Shiro ate standing up in the kitchen next to Hunk. Mm those shoulder could go for miles in either direction. “So, Keith,” Pidge prompted. Keith looked up momentarily at Pidge from the food to signal Pidge to continue. “Do you have chickens out here, or an orange tree?”

Keith took a second to swallow his food before saying, “Well there’s a town not too far from the Garrison that I sometimes go to for things I don’t grow out here. But there are a few chicke-”

“HOW MANY?!” Lance shouted, nearly choking on his food.

“Wh-what?” Keith asked, turning from Pidge to face Lance.

“How many chickens do you have?” Lance asked, sitting on the edge of his seat.

“Se-seven..?”

“Are you saying it in that tone because you’re unsure? If you’re unsure then we’re going and counting them!”

“No… I just don’t know why you want to know. I know for a fact there are seven hens.”

“Ugh, why?” Lance whined, Keith looked confused again. “I wanted to- Fuck it. Where are they?” Lance demanded.

“Nuh-uh!” Hunk said from the kitchen, “You’re staying here and finishing that plate of food. It’s like noon and that’s the first thing you’ve eaten all day.” Lance let out a very loud and long groan.

“At least tell me their names,” Lance mumbled, his mouth stuffed with the last few bites of his food.

“If you talk with your mouth full, you’re going to choke,” Shiro warned from across the room, in the kitchen area.

Pidge snickered before stuffing the last of his food into his mouth and flashing Shiro a smile, being sure that Shiro could see the food stuffed in his mouth. Shiro rolled his eyes and Hunk face-palmed.

“Why- Why do you want to know their names?” Keith asked in a wary tone of voice.

“So that I can address them accordingly, duh!” Pidge watched as Lance struggled to swallow his food. “C’mon! What are their names?!”

Keith let out a long sigh before saying, “Sae, Tsubasa, Gyelan and four unnamed chickens.”

“Sae?! Tsubasa?!” Lance coughed out between laughs, “What kind of names are those?!”

“Names for chickens, Lance.” Pidge could hear the eyeroll in Keith’s voice.

“They’re so stupid!” Lance leaned forward on his knees as he laughed at Keith’s chicken’s names.

“The only stupid thing here is you!” Keith shouted back at Lance.

“Calm down!” Shiro called to them. Both Lance and Keith turned to glare at Shiro.

“Why don’t you guys put your dishes away?” Hunk offered. Lance huffed as he got up to put his dish away. Keith ate the last bite of his food before he got up as well to put his plate away. “Keith, are you okay with it if Lance and I go see your chickens?” Hunk asked.

“Yeah, sure,” Keith replied before joining Pidge on the couch again. Lance’s face brightened up and he sent Hunk a bright smile.

“Let’s go!” he shouted tugging Hunk’s arm as the two of them raced out of the house.

Shiro joined Pidge and Keith on the couch, laughing the whole time he walked to them. “They’re pretty fun, huh?” he asked as he nudged Keith with his elbow.

Keith grumbled out a short reply that caused Shiro to laugh even harder.

“How do you two know each other?” Pidge asked after he had finally swallowed the food he’d shoved into his mouth earlier.

“Our parents,” came Keith’s short and to the point explanation.

“Both of our dad’s were involved with the Galaxy Garrison. Through that, Keith’s dad met his mom who was born into the Galaxy Garrison, I’ve never understood that, and my dad met my mom who was one of the ship navigators on a crew. She eventually ended up leading our dad’s on a mission. Sparing you all the boring details, all four of them are dead now and the two of us were enrolled in the Galaxy Garrison.” Shiro shot Keith a disapproving look at the “were enrolled” part.

“You literally only gave me the boring parts and spared me all the interesting ones, how’d they die?” Pidge was the edge of his seat, his dirty plate forgotten about on the coffee table.

“I guess I did,” Shiro laughed. Pidge watched as his eyes crinkled around the edges and his shoulders shook.

Noticing how Keith was looking at Pidge, like he knew something he shouldn’t, caused Pidge to avert his gaze around the room. His eyes stopped on the board leaning against the wall near the couch. The board had a blanket thrown on top of it so Pidge couldn’t see what it was.

“Hey, what’s that?” Pidge asked, pointing a finger towards the board.

“Well…” Keith trailed off as he got up to go uncover it. “I’m actually kind of glad you asked.” He ripped off the blanket in an overly animated style that would have made Pidge cringe if he hadn’t known Lance for long enough to be desensitized by antics like this. “Have you ever heard of Creepypasta?” Keith’s face had a evil glint to it.

“Yes I have, and might I add, you’re like, what? Seventeen?” Shiro snorted at this remark, when Keith shot a glare his way he tried to play it off a cough.

“Yeah, seventeen. But that doesn’t matter. You’re like, what? Twelve? Shouldn’t you be overly obsessed with them?” Keith shot back.

“Sixteen, you ass. And I was, four years ago,” Pidge said with an eye roll.

“Anyway,” Keith continued, “I’ve been collecting information on them to find them. They’re real, dude, look at this!” Keith pointed in the general direction of the board, not highlighting any specific place to look.

“Psht, that’s nothing,” Pidge scoffed. He pulled out his laptop to open up his documents on the Kerberos mission. “Look at this.”

Pidge watched as Keith looked through the year’s work of hacking and coding, the laptop angled in a way so Pidge and Keith could see it but Shiro couldn’t. “Whoa…” Keith looked through all the files and documents and pictures accumulated around the disappearance of the ship and where it and the pilots might possibly be. “How long did it take you to do this?” he asked, the wonder clear in his eyes.

“About a year,” Pidge said proudly.

“That,” Keith points to his board, “took me about seven months. I’m not even where you were after just a month. What the Hell?” he looked from the laptop up at Shiro. “Dude, come look at this.”

Shiro furrowed his brows as he got up to look at Pidge’s laptop. “What- Wait… It this the Kerberos mission?” he asked as he looked over Keith’s shoulder.

“Uhm… yes?” Pidge said, suddenly feeling very small… Or smaller than usual.

“How did you get all of this information. Most of this is either very intimate or confidential.” Pidge started squirming in his seat, feeling both of the boys’ eyes on himself. “Did you-” Shiro lowered his voice, and looked around the room before continuing, “Did you hack into the Galaxy Garrison to get this?”

Pidge sucked in a breath before rushing the words out, “Maybe, but that’s really something that needs to be answered, you know?”

“Holy shit, you’re good!” Keith exclaimed looking from the screen. “This would require hardcore skills, you’re the best hacker I’ve ever seen!”

Pidge felt a surge of pride at that and smiled to himself.

“Why were you even researching the Kerberos mission?” Shiro asked causing Pidge’s smile to falter into a panicked expression.


	5. Chapter 5

"You're asking me why I was investigating the disappearance of the biggest space mission yet... But not asking Keith why he's trying to find Creepypastas?" Pidge scoffed.

"You have a point..." Shiro mused as Keith let out a wounded noise.

From outside of the house the three boys could a hear a loud, shrill scream of, " _THESE ARE SOME GOOD CHICKENS! OH MAN!_ " Pidge noticed the expression on Keith's face soften for a moment at Lance's screams.

"How do you know those two?" Shiro asked Pidge, causing Keith's face to return to it's previous stoic look.

"I was put onto a crew with the two of them. I actually don't really know them all that well." Pidge shrugged as he said, "I actually had a few friends back at the school, Heath and Calvin."

"Oh!" Keith exclaimed when Pidge said their names, "I know them! They were dating, right?" Pidge nodded and Keith continued, "Their ship name was 'Ceath' and I always thought that people were saying 'Keith' as in my name not 'Ceath' as in the 'C' from Calvin and 'E-A-T-H' from Heath's name."

"You don't say," Pidge mumbled as he slid his laptop away from Shiro and Keith. Pidge snapped the laptop shut and stuffed it into his bag. "So what's that?" Pidge pointed towards the Creepypasta board to change the subject.

"I was mostly looking into the possibility of Slender Man being somewhere near here. About eleven miles east is a fairly large forest that I'm certain Slender Man is living in." Keith pointed to the board where a picture of a black and white figure blurred through a few trees, the picture was attached to red string that was tacked into a forest-looking part of the giant map Keith had splayed on the board.

"We could go look for Slender Man, if you want," Pidge offered.

"Really?" Keith's face lit up at the offer.

"Yeah. When it gets dark though. When does the sun usually set around here?"

"About nine," Keith shrugged and looked at Shiro for help.

"I wouldn't know..." Shiro shrugged as well. "Should we invite Lance and Hunk along? Or would you guy rather have them hold down the house while we go off?"

"I... don't think that leaving them is a great idea," Pidge trailed. He was lost in his thoughts ruminating back to the time at the Garrison that he had left Lance and Hunk in the dorm room alone on a weekend only to come back and find all of the blankets and pillows in one giant pile on the floor that Lance was dive bombing onto. "Yeah. Let's just bring them with."

"Alright," Keith said.

"In the meantime we could look at Keith's board and try to pinpoint the exact location of where Slenderman could be," Pidge said, squatting down and inspecting the board.

"Well, I think I've got him pinpointed to appearing here," Keith circled his finger over a section of trees, "on weekdays. He usually appears here," he pointed to a different circle of trees, "on full moons _and_ weekends."

"How do you know when it's a weekend or a weekday?" Pidge asked, noting that there didn't appear to be any calendars around the house.

"I don't," came Keith's quiet reply.

Pidge gave him a sidelong glance before looking back at the board and readjusting his glasses. "Anyway... Uh, it's a weekday and not a full moon."

"Do you know what exact cycle of the moon tonight will be?" Keith asked.

"Yeah... It'll be waxing gibbous," Pidge responded. After all the nights he spent quietly on the roof of the school, he had at least got all of the phases of the moon down.

"Oh no," Keith muttered under his breath.

"What?" Shiro asked suddenly joining the two boys in squatting next to the board.

"If it really is a waxing gibbous _and_ a weekday then that means that Slenderman _and_ Ticci Toby will be there!" Keith shivered and Pidge assumed that he was afraid of all the boys dying in the forest.

"Wh-What does Ticci Toby have _anything_ to do Slenderman or a forest?!" Shiro asked incredulously.

"Shiro! I've been looking for these Creepypasta for almost seven months, of course I know where they'll be on certain nights!" Keith shot back. "You don't think I'd put in this much effort just to not know where they'll be when I'm about to go looking for them do you?"

Shiro shook his head and let out a deep sigh. "Guess not," was all he said.

Pidge let out a quiet snicker as he got up to his feet. "I'm going to go get Lance and Hunk." Shiro nodded while Keith leaned closer to the board to inspect a picture of Slenderman. Pidge walked to the door to go find Lance and Hunk. "Hey! Guys!" Pidge called to them.

"OVER HERE!" Hunk responded from the back of the house. Pidge made his way over to where he heard the voice come from. Pidge could hear some weird noise coming from the other side of the house, it sort of sounded like crying?

As Pidge rounded the corner to the back of the house, he saw an open chicken coop, Hunk standing just outside of it, holding a white chicken. "This one's name is Tsubasa!" he gushed, petting the chicken softly and pointing to a tag on its foot.

"That's great Hunk," Pidge said, peering into the coop to see Lance sitting down with six chickens on or around him. He was a giggling mess.

"Uh... Lance?" Pidge asked tentatively.

Lance looked over at Pidge, his face tear-streaked and giggles erupting from his body. "Yeah, buddy?"

"You and Hunk should come back inside now... There's some stuff we should talk about with Keith and Shiro." Hunk walked into the coop to set Tsubasa down before he started taking the other chickens off of Lance.

"No-no. No, no, no. I don-I don't think that we need to go inside," Lance was barely able to get the words out between giggles.

"Lance. C'mon, we've got to talk to about some stuff, you can see the chickens again later, if that's what you want," Pidge responded, rolling his eyes.

"Here," Hunk said, moving to get Lance onto his feet. "We'll come back out here later, okay Lance?"

Lance nodded his head, a stupid smile plastered on his face. "I fucking love chickens, bro."

Pidge led the two boys back into the house where Shiro and Keith were sat on the couch waiting for them. Lance was wiping his face when he walked through the door to the house, still shaken.

Shiro got to his feet so Lance and Pidge took his spot while Hunk stood next to Shiro. "So, we were planning on going out to a nearby forest and hunting for Slenderman... Possibly Ticci Toby as well... I think?" Shiro said while Keith nodded in excitement. "Uh, anyway... Yeah. We're leaving at about nine and going looking for Slenderman. We want to find him, but don't really want to find Ticci Toby."

"Is this some sort of code for a game of capture the flag?" Lance asked, leaning his elbows on his knees, he seemed to have fully recovered from the episode he was having earlier.

"No!" Keith shouted, leaning around Pidge to look Lance in the eyes. "We're actually going to go look for Slenderman..." Keith paused before continuing, pointing his finger in Lance's face. "And, you better not mess this up for us!"

Lance's jaw dropped and he leaned around Pidge as well to point his finger into Keith's face. "Me mess this up?! If anything, your angry persona will start causing smoke to literally radiate from your body and give us away to Ticci Toby. If anything happens, your body is the one that we're going to be giving to Slenderman as a sacrifice!"

This time Keith's jaw dropped and he jabbed his finger closer to Lance's face. It was clear that what Lance had ended on had irked Keith. "Oh I get it, you're planning my death? What is wrong with you?!"

Pidge let out loud groan as he swatted both Lance and Keith's hands out of his face. "Oh shut the fuck up, both of you! All of us are going to get out of the forest alive. If anything Shiro and I will just _give ourselves_ to Ticci Toby so we don't have to listen to your inane fucking arguing, we _all know_ what emotions you're both trying to hide!"

Shiro nodded in agreement, while Keith and Lance sat in shock. Hunk asked, "Wait, what about me then? If you two are dead," Hunk pointed as Pidge and Shiro, "and these two are arguing," Hunk moved to point at Keith and Lance, "then what about me?"

"We all know that you'd be using your mediating skills to solve their arguing," Pidge said.

"'Mediating skills'? What mediating skills?" Hunk asked.

Before Pidge could give an example, Shiro cut in, "So we're going to leave at about nine tonight, the only problem being that we aren't exactly certain when that is."

Pidge snorted and Lance leaned back to kick his legs onto the battered coffee table. "Well I guess that means that we get to just relax then. Ooh! Me and Hunk could go see the chickens again!"

"Hunk and I," Pidge muttered quietly. Shiro sent a soft smile his way, seeming to be the only person who heard him.

"Not exactly," Shiro said to Lance. "We do have some other thing to talk about. One of which being you four guys kidnapping me."

Lance let out a loud groan, setting his legs back on the floor, "You're not angry about that, are you? I thought it was pretty clear that we were rescuing you. We didn't mean to take you by force!"

Shiro laughed as he said, "No, I'm not angry." Shiro looked right at Pidge when he said, "There are still a few things about it though that need to be discussed." Pidge squirmed and swallowed a lump in his throat. Oh God, Shiro knows that Pidge is a dirty liar.

"Actually," Hunk interrupted everyone, "there is something I wanted to show you." Pidge crinkled his eyebrows at this, does everybody in this Goddamn house have a skeleton in their closet. Pidge hoped so, more skeletons means more recruits for the skeleton army's next draft.

"What is it?" Lance asked.

Hunk reached into his own pocket to pull out a photo, before Pidge could react Hunk says, "This picture I found of Pidge and his girlfriend!" Shiro's eyes widened as he tried to see the picture Hunk kept moving around to show everyone.

"What?!" Pidge jumped up and snatched the photo from Hunk's hands. "Where did you even get this?!" Pidge placed the photo of himself, pretransition, standing with his brother back into his bag.

"Well, I found it while I was looking through your bag-"

"Why were you looking through my bag?!"

"I was looking for a candy bar. Anyway, I also read some of your diary," Hunk held the battered brown journal that Pidge had been using as a diary.

Pidge jumped up again to get the diary from Hunk's hands. "What the fuck!" Pidge exclaimed as he put the diary into his bag as well.

Shiro wiped his hand across his face as he let out a _very_ loud sigh. "That- That's not what I meant when I said that we had some things to talk about. I mean that we need to discuss what will happen later. I'm fairly certain that all four of you have been expelled from the Garrison."

Keith let out an awkward cough and Shiro turned to look at him. "Uh... I might have- uh..." Keith rubbed the back of his neck as Shiro gestured for him to go on. "There's a small chance that I was expelled from the Garrison about seven months ago..."

"Oh my fucking- How?!" Shiro asked Keith.

"'Disciplinary Issues,' whatever the fuck that means," Lance said, putting air quotes around the first part.

"How did you know that?" Keith asked Lance accusingly.

"Doesn't matter," Lance shot back. Pidge thought back to how on multiple occasions Commander Iverson had compared Lance to Keith to try to get Lance to work better. Until recently, Pidge had had no clue who Keith was.

"Can we please not get into this right now?" Shiro said, while rubbing his temples.

"Yeah!" Hunk chimed in, "Let's just talk about what Shiro wanted to talk about."

"What I want to talk about is, what we're all going to do after this." Nobody said a word so Shiro went on, "Are you four going to go back to the Garrison, or back home?"

"Home," came Pidge's immediate response. Shiro nodded in understanding while Lance looked deep in thought.

"Well... The Garrison is really bad, right?" Hunk asked. "So I don't really think that any of us going back to it would be a good choice. I think that we all should go back home."

"I _know_ that I'm expelled so I'll just stay here," Keith whispered. "What about you?" Keith asked Lance louder.

"I think that..." Lance looked out the window next to him in a melodramatic way as he continued, "I'll just go wherever time takes me."

"Okay," Shiro said. "Now we wait for nightfall."

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

When the sun had set, the boys all piled onto Keith's hoverbike for what would not be the last time. Keith revved the engine and the five boys were off towards where the forest was.

Keith was the first to jump off the bike and rush to the edge of the forest. "Slow down!" Lance yelled, running after him, struggling to get a flashlight to work. Hunk raced after the two of them turning on his flashlight.

"Do you actually think we're going to find anything?" Pidge asked Shiro quietly as the two leisurely made their way to where the other three boys were waiting for them.

"No. Do you?" Shiro mused back.

"Eh. I don't think we're going to be finding Slender or Toby but I do think that we'll find at least two aliens," Pidge laughed as he hit his flashlight against his palm to get it to turn on.

"Aliens?" Shiro asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Yeah. I spend a while researching space at the Garrison, obviously, and I think that we're going to find at least two aliens in this forest."

"Why aliens but not Creepypasta?"

"Aliens are real. Creepypasta are not." Lance turned back to see that Pidge and Shiro were nearing the forest edge so he grabbed both Keith and Hunk's hands and tugged them into the forest. "How long are we going to be looking?" Pidge shouted to the three boys as they disappeared from eye sight.

Shiro held up a low hanging branch so Pidge could walk under it and enter the forest. Pidge and Shiro heard Keith's reply from deeper in the forest, "As long as it takes- _AH_!"

Pidge and Shiro looked at each other before sprinting off in the direction that Keith's voice came from.


	6. Chapter 6

Shiro was running in front of Pidge, trying his best to keep branches from smacking Pidge in the face at the same time as he was trying to run as fast as he could; Pidge on the other hand, was not the best best runner. Pidge had never done very well on the physical training that the Garrison did for students. He was struggling to keep up with Shiro, but thankfully Keith and the other boys hadn’t gone too far into the forest.

Shiro rounded a corner and abruptly stopped running, causing Pidge to slam into his back, but because of Pidge’s small size, it hardly fazed Shiro at all. Rubbing his face and readjusting his glasses, Pidge walked around to Shiro to see what had happened.

Lance was being held on the ground by a person. Keith and Hunk were looking at each other, unsure whether they should help Lance or not. “Um…” Shiro said to the person who was holding Lance to the ground. The person looked up from Lance at Shiro.

“What are you five doing here?” the woman, Pidge guessed, demanded.

It was kind of hard to make out any distinguishing features because of the dark and neither Pidge nor Hunk dared to aim their flashlight directly into someone’s face. Lance did however. He just fucking aimed it directly into the woman’s face as soon as she loosened her grip on him. She squinted from the light and Lance was able to wiggle himself out of her grip when she shielded her eyes.

The girl, she couldn’t have been much older than the boys, had darker skin, bluish eyes, pink markings near her eyes and long, curly, silver hair. Also purple earrings that floated under her ears, Pidge made a mental note to try to figure that out later.

“What are you doing here?” she repeated. As Shiro whapped Lance upside the head for shining his light into someone’s face.

“We’re looking for monsters,” Hunk said.

“This forest is off limits to trespassers, if you don’t leave at once you will be prosecuted.”

Four of the five boys looked at each other apprehensively, Keith however said, “Oh yeah? You and who else? We’re not leaving until we find what we were looking for.” A collective groan came from the other four boys.

The girl narrowed her eyes at the boys as she said, “And what exactly is it that you’re looking for?” As she said this, another person jumped out of the bushed and started circling around Lance with his fists up.

“Are these hooligans causing you any trouble, Allura?” the man said. Lance moved his flashlight into the man’s face, this time Keith hit Lance’s head, to reveal the man had orange hair, an orange mustache and light skin as well as blue markings near his eyes.

“No, Coran. I have this under control,” the girl, Allura, sighed as she rubbed her temples.

“Just making sure, because it would be a shame if I had to go at one of them with a,” the man, Coran, then proceeded to an odd punching motion and make an even weirder noise to go along with it.

“Well I could do this!” Lance exclaimed as he did a similar thing as Coran.

“Lance,” Shiro warned, causing Lance to stop and Coran to smirk slightly.

Allura let out another loud sigh before saying, “What are you guys doing here?” in a significantly less threatening way than last time.

“We’re looking for Slenderman and Ticci Toby,” Pidge said.

“Slenderman and Ticci-who?” Allura asked with a confused look on her face.

“We know you know they’re here, stop trying to hide them!” Keith yelled at Allura and Coran. Lance and Shiro had to move fast to restrain Keith from attacking either of the people.

“That’s not what we’re hiding here!” Coran exclaimed back, before he could continue, Allura slapped a hand over Coran’s mouth and spoke over him.

“I think you all need to leave now,” she said loudly.

“What are you doing here?” Pidge asked her defiantly.

“That’s none of your business!” Allura shot back.

“Come one, guys,” Shiro says, placing a hand on Pidge’s shoulder to lead him out of the forest. “Let’s just go.”

“No!” Pidge proclaimed. “We’re not leaving until we get some answers!” Pidge grabbed Shiro’s hand and tossed it away from himself.

Shiro looked into Pidge’s eyes, and it seemed as if he wanted to say something. “I do too. God,” Shiro dragged a hand down his face as he said this, “we all want some answers, but there any for us here.”

“You don’t know that!” Pidge shouted, stomping one of his feet childishly.

“Then what do you say we do?” Shiro asked. A mischievous grin stretched across Pidge’s face as the light reflected from his glasses.

“Get me my bag from the bike,” Pidge said.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

“So we’ve technically kidnapped three people now?!” Hunk exclaimed as he paced back and forth in front of Keith’s couch. He hadn’t been very keen on the idea of tying up Allura and Coran so the team compromised by kindly threatening and softly demanding the two go with them.

“I guess so…” Keith replied from where he leaned against the wall.

“Oh c’mon we weren’t going back to the Garrison anyway,” Lance yawned, he was sitting on the ground next to Keith’s legs.

“Pidge… what are you doing?” Shiro asked Pidge, who was using his binoculars to scan both Coran and Allura.

“Not much.” Pidge looked from his binoculars at Coran and Allura who were both sitting on the couch, looking slightly terrified. “So are you two like guards or something?”

“Yes,” Allura replied.

“You guys don’t have to scared,” Pidge stated, “we aren’t going to hurt you. We just want some information and we won’t force it out of you.” Allura eased up significantly while Coran remained stiff.

“How long is this going to last?” Lance asked as he let out another yawn.

“I don’t know,” Shiro responded.

“Mm,” Lance mumbled as he leaned over against Keith’s legs to sleep on.

“What are you doing?” Keith asked. Pidge noticed a slight blush on Keith’s face and it took everything within Pidge to not start screaming.

“What were you guarding?” Pidge asked the two people on the couch.

“A castle,” Allura replied.

Hunk stopped pacing long enough to gasp before continuing his pacing. “Is it a big castle?” Shiro asked.

“Yes, quite,” Allura said.

“Coran, why are you being so quiet?” Pidge asked Coran.

“No reason,” he said quickly, fidgeting with his mustache a little bit.

“We aren’t going to hurt you,” Shiro assured him. Coran nodded and eased his posture.

“So what’s in the castle then?” Pidge asked. “Why is it in a forest and why does it need to be guarded?”

Allura and Coran gave each other a look before Coran shrugged and said, “Secret war ships that the Garrison have been manufacturing. We’re guarding it because people might want to steal it, they are secret war ships, after all.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Pidge watched as Keith yawned and leaned down to sling one of Lance’s arms over his shoulders. Keith then supported Lance as they tiredly walked into the guest bedroom. Pidge counted to ten before Keith left the room and walked into his own room. Weaklings, they couldn’t even last past three in the morning.

Shiro squinted his eyes at Coran as he asked, “Why would there be top-secret war machines in the middle of nowhere in a guarded castle?”

Allura scoffed before she said, “You of all people should know why, Shiro.”

“What does that mean?” Pidge and Shiro asked in unison.

Allura and Coran gave each other another look before Allura squinted her eyes at Shiro and slowly asked, “So… you don’t remember?”

“Remember what?” Pidge and Shiro asked at the same time again.

“When you were being held captive in the castle,” Allura tried to explain to him.

“What are you talking about?” Shiro asked slowly as he crossed his arms. Pidge glanced at Shiro and determined that Shiro had no memory of what Allura was telling him.

“Allura, I don’t think he remembers,” Coran said softly.

Allura sighed before she said, “The Garrison sabotaged your space mission and you and the other two pilots were taken to the castle. Fairly soon, Samuel Holt was transferred to the Galra-Base from the Altea-Base. After a while you were being transferred to the Galra-Base as well but you were ‘compromised’ on your way there,” Allura put air quotes around compromised. She gave Shiro a hopeful look, trying to get him to remember.

“I…” Shiro looked at Pidge with a scared and confused expression. All Pidge wanted to do was hold Shiro’s hand and tell him that it’ll be okay. That was something that Pidge needed when he heard his family was gone, instead he got sent to the same school that hurt his family. “I remember the ship heading to Kerberos, but right when we got there, something went wrong and it… crashed. Then a purple ship was there within a few minutes, which was weird before it takes us months to get all the way out to Kerberos. And then all three of us were on the ship being flown back to where we launched from. Then I was waking up here…” Shiro’s aimed his gaze at his feet, but because of Pidge’s short height, he was able to see that Shiro was very troubled.

“Is that everything you remember?” Allura prods him. At this point, Hunk had stopped pacing to listen to the conversation with his full attention.

“I remember that the crash was very bad. Something went wrong and we weren’t able to fix it, something weird that seemed like it’d been tampered with. And the crash, there was metal and blood everywhere. I think the crash was where I got the scar…” Shiro’s hand traveled up to lightly trace the pinkish skin of the scar that stretched across his nose and top of his cheekbones.

“And is that all?” Allura asked again.

“In the… castle… there were fights. A sort of sick-gladiator type thing was going on there. That’s where I lost my arm. Then I was moved to the Garrison for the prosthetic,” Shiro looked as if he was about to break down. It was hurting Pidge and Hunk to watch their new friend look this way.

Allura nodded before she said, “Yes. You lost and arm in one of the fights and you were being moved to test out the prototype for the new one, then you were going to be moved to where Samuel was in the Galra-Base to work on tech rather than manual labor like where Matthew was in the Altea-Base.”

Pidge decided that now was the best time to butt-in, “So that means that you know where Sam and Matt Holt are?” Allura nodded to confirm this. “Then that means that we can go get them!” Pidge looked to Shiro with a hopeful, half smile on his face, but Shiro was still shaken up from having to remember what happened.

“That’s not a good idea,” Allura said quickly, stifling Pidge’s hope.

“What do you mean it’s not a good idea?” Pidge asked. Now was as a good a time as any for Hunk to go to bed, so he slipped from the room with only a quiet goodnight guys.

“Allura means that both bases are heavily guarded and that Samuel Holt has escaped from the Galra-Base. Samuel Holt escaped earlier today and Matthew Holt is being moved from the Altea-Base to the Galra-Base tomorrow. It would be very stupid to try to rescue him while he’s being moved because this time he’s going to be heavily guarded by armed guards,” Coran explained.

“When would it be best to go get him?” Pidge asked, already afraid of the answer.

“In a few weeks, after he’s been put on a routine and the guards have settled down. There should still be a lot because they’ll be expecting us, but still we need to prepare,” Allura said.

“What do you mean by ‘we’?” Shiro asked her.

“Coran and I will help you rescue your friend,” Allura said with certainty.

“How will you do that?” Pidge asked, not sure if he was ready to trust her yet or not.

“The secret weapons back at the Altea-Base. We can go get them for you and have them back here by this afternoon,” Allura said.

Then is was Pidge and Shiro’s turn to share a look, through the look it was decided that they could trust Allura and Coran. “Okay,” Shiro said, “do that. We’re going to go to bed now. When you get back, wake up Keith. He’s a light sleeper so he’ll probably already be awake by then anyway.”

Allura and Coran nodded before walking out the door together.

“Alright, so we’re probably dead now,” Shiro muttered under his breath. “Goodnight Pidge!” he said louder as he entered his and Keith’s shared room. When the door opened, Pidge was able to see a fairly messy, dark room with two twin mattresses on the ground on opposite sides of the room. Keith was sprawled on one of them, holding a knife in his hand like the edgy emo he is.

“Goodnight, Shiro,” Pidge said as he entered his room shared with Hunk and Lance. Hunk and Lance were both already asleep in their sleeping bags on the floor.

Pidge unrolled his bag, took off his glasses, jacket and shoes, then got into the bag. It took Pidge a good hour and a half before he was able to fall asleep, Shiro however did not sleep at all that night. He did cry a little bit though.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Shiro was already awake when Allura and Coran came back with the weapons. They only had four weapons, so the team would have to make what they could with what they had; a green electric grappling hook,  red sword, a blue riffle, and a yellow machine gun. The only thought going through Shiro’s head was, the boys are going to be so excited.  
When everybody was awake, the weapons were distributed between them. Pidge with green, Keith with red, Hunk with yellow, and Lance with blue. Shiro, Coran and Allura didn’t get any weapons. Pidge immediately took his weapon outside to study it.

Not long after, Shiro joined Pidge in sitting on the shady side of the house while Pidge looked at the weapon and tried to take it apart to study it.

“Hey Pidge?” Shiro asked as he sat down beside Pidge, this time Pidge was not scared as he’d expected Shiro to show up at some point. Or maybe he was hoping Shiro would show up.

“Yeah?” Pidge glanced up from trying to to unscrew a panel from the bayard long enough to notice Shiro’s dark circles under his eyes.

“I’ve been meaning to ask you…” Shiro paused for a moment, probably trying to think of what to say next, “... are you Matt’s younger brother?”

Pidge dropped the bayard and looked Shiro right in his eyes, his heart nearly pounding from his chest.


	7. Chapter 7

"Wh-what would make you think that?" Pidge asked, trying to play it cool. His voice was far too nervous to sound believable though. Shiro narrowed his eyes at Pidge and Pidge rushed to explain, "My name is Pidge Gunderson, that's nowhere even near Katie Holt!"

Shiro went from looking suspicious to looking confused, "That's fine, I was just curious. If there is anything that you'd like to talk to me about, I would listen. And, I believe you, okay?" Shiro gave Pidge a pat on the shoulder and a tight lipped smile. "Anyway, what were you doing with your bayard?"

"Uhm..." Pidge picked it back up from where he had dropped it on the floor and started turning it over to find the panel that he was trying to pry open. "I was trying to see if I was able to open it to get to the wiring. I wanted to see if I would be able to rewire some of it, while I think that the grappling part of it is perfect, I think that the electro-shock mechanics could use some work." Pidge turned the bayard in his hands a couple of times before he found a spot to open.

"So you can get into the wiring, do you know anything about the bayard? Do you actually know how to rewire it so that you can do what you want to it?" Shiro watched closely as Pidge used a screwdriver to undo a panel to the bayard.

"I don't know anything about this weapon, but give me about six minutes and I'll know everything about it." Pidge closely inspected the wires before pulling out a few tools Shiro didn't recognise. The two sat in silence as Pidge worked, consumed by his thoughts.

Pidge knew he wasn't a _real_ guy, whatever the fuck that means, but he wasn't really a girl either. Before Pidge had to be Pidge, he hadn't ever given much thought to how he felt about being a girl. It was just something that was, after being a guy for awhile he knew now that there wasn't really any going back. He wasn't a girl, but he wasn't a guy. There was a word for this... Nonbinary. Yeah, that's what Pidge was. He had to tell the others though.

The sudden realization that Pidge identified as agender struck them. They shifted from side to side, suddenly all too aware of how they were pretending to be someone they weren't. There was literally no reason to continue lying to the others, if anything it was going to hinder how well they could work together. As of now, the only person known to have emotional ties to Matt and Sam Holt was Shiro.

"Hey... Shiro?" Pidge asked quietly to break the silence that had fallen upon them.

"Yeah?"

"I think... Yes... Uhm..." Pidge trailed off, their thoughts being consumed by anxiety. What if no one on the team trusted them after they came out? What if they all thought that Pidge was crazy? What if they all left and Pidge would be kicked out?! Pidge didn't want to be kicked out of... whatever it was that the seven of them had going on...

"Pidge, I'm here to listen to you. Take your time if you want, I'll be supportive." Shiro placed one of his hands on Pidge's shoulder and Pidge felt something that they hadn't felt in a long time. Happy and supported.

Pidge looked into Shiro's eyes and felt something pound in their chest. Probably the elusive heart that had caused many arguments as to whether or not it actually existed. "Samuel Holt is my father and Matthew Holt is my brother." Shiro smiled and gave Pidge's shoulder another supportive squeeze. "My birth name is Katelyn Holt... But uh... I'd rather continue going by Pidge... And I'm not really a boy... or a uh... bo-boy." Pidge quickly looked at Shiro's face to see how he'd reacted to Pidge's revelation.

He'd reacted positively.

With Shiro's support, Pidge went back inside to let everyone else hear the news. It was not easy, but everyone was supportive, even Coran and Allura who had only known Pidge for a day. Hunk had already known because he'd read Pidge's diary, Keith had come to the conclusion himself and Lance had been completely clueless.

"Well, now that Pidge can be themself, we're going to need to get to planning on how to get their brother back," Allura stated.

The team nodded and got to planning. Allura and Coran had access to where Matt was being held in the Galra-Base and what his rounds were. It was decided that attacking in a month would be best; It left time for training and working out the exact details of the plan. Allura and Coran would stay a little ways away from the team and direct them over coms so they didn't get lost. Shiro and Pidge would sneak in through the vents closet to Matt's holding cell. Keith, Hunk, and Lance would blast their way in through a hallway leading to an exit so that the team could quickly get in and get out. If everything went to plan, they'd be there for fifteen minutes at most.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

The team got to training, while Pidge worked on perfecting the com system to work in helmets everyone, excluding Coran for some reason, had. It wasn't easy because there wasn't a tower to base the transmission off of so it would have to be open to anyone on their frequency, which honestly scared the crap out of Pidge.

While Pidge worked on the coms, Lance and Hunk were target shooting while Keith and Shiro practiced hand to hand combat. Allura and Coran were watching the guard shifts to be certain that nothing changed and the plan would still work.

Pidge let out a loud sigh as they wiped sweat off their forehead. The idea of being able to see their brother and go home made them sweat even more. What if he didn't even recognise Pidge? The last time Matt had seen his little sibling, Pidge was still presenting as female. Pidge wasn't even certain that Matt knew about nonbinary as a gender identity... what if he was transphobic?! Pidge smacked themself in the head to get off the train thought, Matt was a loving brother who would accept his younger sibling, no matter sexuality, romantic orientation or gender identity. But what if he wasn't? No, fuck that. Pidge aimed their focus back at the coms.

There was a yell, then a scream, then a chorus of more yells heard from outside causing Allura and Coran to jump. Pidge, however was so off in their own mind that they hadn't even really paid any attention to it. Until Shiro walked through the door with a bloody nose.

"Shiro?" Pidge asked, looking him. His hand was pressed against his nose as blood dripped down from it in a steady stream. He was smiling and his eyes were relaxed. "What...? What happened?"

Shiro let out a laugh and motioned Pidge to walk over to the sink where he had his head bent over. "Lance threw a rock at my face," he explained as he continued to laugh.

"Wait, why?" There was still a lot to this story that Shiro was leaving out.

"Him and Keith were having their normal aggressively passive aggressive pseudo-rival competition when Lance got the idea to toss a rock at Keith. He missed Keith, he hit me." Pidge nodded. Shiro's nose finally had stopped bleeding so Pidge rushed to the bathroom to get him a washrag.

When Pidge reentered to room to give Shiro the rag, Allura stomped into the room dragging Lance and Keith behind her by their ears. "Apologize!" she ordered.

"Wait, what does Keith have to apologize for?" Pidge asked handing the cloth to Shrio.

Allura let out a loud sigh and tapped her foot, waiting for them to explain.

"I... uh..." Keith trailed rubbing the back of his neck.

"SHIRO I AM SO SORRY I DIDN'T MEAN TO HIT YOU!" Lance shouted over Keith.

"Yeah, I'm sorry I was egging him on... And I'm sorry for throwing my sword at Lance. If it means anything, it was just the blunt bayard, not the sharp sword part."

"I accept your apology, Lance," Shiro laughed, "but you should really accept Keith's apology as well."

Lance let out a loud sigh and dropped his shoulders, "Do I have to?"

"Lance! You threw rocks at Keith!" Allura shouted.

Pidge sidestepped over to where Hunk and Coran were standing awkwardly. "So... uh, do you two want to start cooking dinner with me?"

Hunk nodded, "That's probably for the best..."

Later that night, Pidge and everyone were sat around a bonfire in front of the shack eating their dinner, excluding Lance and Keith who were eating their dinner on the couch inside. Curiosity getting the better of Pidge, they snuck up to the house to listen to their conversation.

Without being able to see them, Pidge had to go off sound, which sucks because Lance is overly animated and Keith's pouts make up like half of his dialogue. "Sorry about the rock thing... again," Lance says.

There's a pause before Keith responds with, "It's fine. I did throw my bayard at you first. I guess I deserved it... had it been me who got hit..." There was another pause then both Lance and Keith burst out laughing.

After they'd calmed down, Lance said quietly, "I kind of want to go home..."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean after we help Pidge get their brother back, I don't think that I'll be able to go back to school. I don't think that I even want to. I mean, didn't the Garrison like kidnap Shiro and Pidge's family?" There was another pause.

"Yeah... So are you going to go to a normal high school and finish high school?"

"What else _can_ I do?" Lance asked, his voice breaking. Pidge was certain that this was some type of bonding moment for them, but Pidge wasn't about to pass up an opportunity to eavesdrop.

"You could... uh..." Keith paused for a long time, as if he didn't know if wanted to say what he was about to say or not. "Stay here," he finished quietly.

"What?" Lance asked to clarify.

"I mean, something you can do. You can just stay here and not have to deal with the rest of the world."

"I think that I'd prefer it if you went with me back to my home."

Someone cleared their throat next to Pidge's ear, causing them to jump and almost alert Lance and Keith to their presence. "Shiro!" Pidge whispered loudly, upon seeing that it was Shiro. It was still a little hard to see his features with only light from the bonfire, but his white streak of hair shimmered magnificently. A distant voice from the back of Pidge's mind shouted one thing, " _GAY!_ "

"What are you doing, Pidge?" Shiro whispered back, a smirk playing on his lips as he crossed his arms.

"Stalking the red and blue boys, obviously," Pidge responded trying to press their ear against the door to hear the rest of the conversation.

Shiro put his prosthetic arm on Pidge's shoulder and led them around the side of the house. "You really shouldn't be eavesdropping," Shiro said in a normal volume.

"Yeah, and you really shouldn't be getting in the way of my ships being canon," Pidge shot back.

"Okay first of all Pidge, don't ship your friends together. Secondly, don't say canon when talking about real life."

"Sure, _dad_ ," Pidge teased. Shiro's face flushed so violently red that Pidge was able to see the color change even in the dim light.

"I'm just saying it's a little weird to ship people in real life," Shiro said defensively.

"I know, I just want them to be happy... I want you to be happy too, Shiro. I want everyone on our team to be happy." Pidge said the second part in a serious tone.

"What do you mean?" he asked.

"I mean..." Pidge wasn't sure how to explain that they liked Shiro not just platonically. "I just want you to be happy and not have to worry about other people so much. I don't know if you know this, but when we first arrived here," Pidge motioned to the shack, "I scanned you with my binoculars. When I did, your brain lit up all sorts of patterns I had never really seen before. I don't know shit about neurology so I used Google and I found what about your brain wasn't neurotypical. You have PTSD..." Shiro stared at Pidge for a moment, lost in thought.

"You... You looked that up? Because you were interested in my brain?" Shiro was in shock.

"Uh, yeah. I thought that it was really interesting and that you were interesting as well." Pidge laughed bashfully and Shiro continued to stare in awe.

"Pidge, you're really smart, you know that?" he asked finally.

"Yes, I guess so."

"You're really interesting as well," Shiro followed it with.

"What do you mean?" Pidge crinkled their eyebrows together in confusion.

"I mean, there's a lot going on with you. You're smart, sassy, sarcastic, shy... super cute." Pidge wasn't sure they had heard the last part correctly, so they chose to ignore it.

"Thanks... I guess?" Pidge paused for a moment, trying to think of an adequate complement to pay Shiro in return. "I really like your eyeliner and hair swoosh, also your arm is super fucking cool." Pidge couldn't bare the thought of Shiro ever changing his hair, if he did then Pidge made sure to make a mental note to start a conspiracy theory about him being a clone. The real Shiro would never change his hair.

"Uh... Pidge?" Shiro asked, rubbing his neck.

"Yeah?" Clone theories aside, Shiro was fucking gorgeous.

"I really like you," he admitted, possibly more so to the floor than either himself or Pidge.

"That's cool," Pidge said, looking into Shiro's eyes. After a second Pidge realized what they had just said and rushed to say, "IMEANILIKEYOUTOO!"

Shiro laughed and reached over to touch Pidge's cheek with his real hand. He slowly leaned closer to Pidge, but before he was able to kiss them, he asked, "This is okay, right? I need to know you're okay with us kissing."

"Yeah, I would really like it," Pidge said before rolling onto their tiptoes and pressing their lips to Shiro's. After a moment, Pidge parted from Shiro and snickered at his lovestruck face. "I think everyone's gone to bed," Pidge pointed out, the bonfire had been stopped a while ago.

"Okay," Shiro said. The two walked into the quiet house, past Allura sleeping on the foldout couch and over Coran sleeping on the floor. The two parted into their respective bedrooms and slept soundly.

The next month passed in a blur, Shiro and Pidge grew closer and everyone was working hard to train as much as they could so that when they went to rescue Matt they'd have the best chance of leaving alive.

On the night before the big mission, Lance and Keith sat in the chicken coop, Shiro and Pidge sat on the couch while Hunk, Allura and Coran were watching the guards' schedules from the side of the shack.

"Keith, we might not make it out alive," Lance pointed out. "But if we do, I'm going to bring you home so you can meet my mamá, mayor hermanos and menor sobrinos."

Keith smiled sadly at Lance, "I'd love to do that. But just in case we don't make it out alive, I want you to know that I love you. I'd also like to call you my boyfriend." Lance smiled, with tears streaming down his face he went to hug Keith with all his might.

Pidge and Shiro were busy discussing the difference between rpg's and mmo's. "Shiro, you can play an rpg mmo, but you can also just play an rpg or mmo. They're not mutually exclusive."

"Wait, really? I always thought they were the same..."

Pidge smiled at Shiro as they said, "So Lance and Keith are probably dating now." Shiro nodded in agreement. "I think we should date now too."

"I do too. Do you want me to call you my significant other or something else?"

"Yeah, that's cool."


	8. Chapter 8

The next morning, everyone was up at five; it would take a little over over two hours to get to the Galra-Base, Pidge and Shiro riding on a hoverbike from the Altea-Base Allura and Coran lent them, Hunk, Keith and Lance riding on Keith's hoverbike. When they got to the Galra-Base, at seven fifteen, Hunk, Lance and Keith would go through a hidden drone pathway, then at their cue, Shiro and Pidge would go through the vent next to Matt's holding cell.

The plan was fairly simple, and Coran drew up two maps for the five to use. Pidge was nervous, but ecstatic that they were going to get to see Matt again. It was a nice feeling, they'd been away from home for almost five months since Pidge had been home and over a year since they'd seen Matt or their dad. To finally be able to go home with their brother to see their mom and dad was a wonderful thought.

Pidge and Shiro arrived at the air vent at about seven ten, they began to take the panel off the side of the dark purple building so they'd be quick to get in and get out when they were given the signal that the three boys were close to Matt's cell. Almost ten minutes passed, and the two were given the signal to go.

Shiro burst through first, Pidge directly after him. Shiro, who was weaponless, was busy fighting the Galra hand to hand while Pidge used their bayard to start hitting the control panel keeping Matt in his cell. Matt was bust sleeping on a bed on the inside of the cell, Pidge could barely see his face from the small window in the door of the cell.

While Pidge could finish opening the cell door, Shiro was by their side tugging them over, Pidge looked around, the horror of their situation dawning on Pidge suddenly. All exits were blocked off by the Galra soldiers. There was no exit. Shiro looked at Pidge sadly, his eyes saying everything. _There's no way we're going to be able to leave alive with Matt._

A gun was fired and a searing pain shot up Pidge's leg. They stumbled back to the wall, standing on the leg that hadn't been shot in the knee. "Shiro," they gasped, he had murder in his eyes, "Shiro, you need to get out!" He wasn't moving, but the Galra were inching in towards them. Suffocating them with the purple lights and stoic looks.

Pidge grunted loudly as they rushed the guard opposite them, both Pidge and the guard fell to the ground with a loud thud, "SHIRO, RUN! I GOT THIS! GET OUT OF HERE!" Pidge screamed, trying to keep the gaurd pinned to the ground. The last thing in the world Pidge wanted was to be in this situation, but they'd risk the world just to save Shiro from being in another prison.

Shiro took the message and sprinted over Pidge and the guard, stopping just short of the tunnel he, Pidge and Matt were supposed to take. He turned back to Pidge, about to run back and help Pidge, but before he could go help, Lance, Hunk and Keith sprinted from the hallway. Lance and Hunk took in the situation and grabbed Shiro by his shoulders, dragging him back down the hallway. He screamed the whole way down the hall.

Keith was walking towards the Galra, his sword drawn. When Keith saw just how many soldiers were there with Pidge, he hesitated. "KEITH, GET OUT, I'M HURT!" Keith saw the blood spilling from Pidge's leg and how they were held up by one of the soldiers. There was no way he could kill the soldiers and carry Pidge out. He had to leave. That was hardest decision he had ever made.

It wasn't plausible for Pidge to be angry that they'd been left behind. Shiro wasn't hurt, but Pidge was. It was in everyone's best interest to leave and come back later.

Days later, possibly a whole week even, Pidge is sat in a holding cell by themself, their leg wrapped haphazardly with bandages, the bleeding long since subsided but the leg still unable to be walked on. Soon enough, Pidge is escorted down a hall to a white room with a white chair. After almost an eternity of waiting, an important looking guy walks into the room.

He approaches Pidge angrily, leaning into their face and spitting, "Who all was working with you?" My family. "Where are they now?" At home. "Where's the house?" Not here. "Do you think that sarcasm will last you much longer here?" As long as Pidge is here, so is the sarcasm. "You think you're so funny, don't you?" No. I think I'm dead. "You don't know what death is. Not yet anyway," the man laughs.

Between the screams that seemed to follow Pidge everywhere and the pain... Pidge couldn't tell how long they'd been waiting. The marks on the wall told them three weeks. The pain in their chest told them forever.

Sitting in the cell quietly, waiting for something to happen, waiting for their friends to rescue them... just... waiting... Pidge took a deep breath then let it out, trying to focus their mind on anything other than pain.

At one point while being escorted to the interrogation room, Pidge had been certain that they had seen their brother. He had said something about, "Dad got out. He got out, Katie! Why... Why are you here? Oh God. Oh God, you're hurt! KATIE!"

All Pidge could say was, "It's Pidge, actually." They were too broken to say anything more. Matt was being escorted somewhere else as well, so they weren't able to have the long awaited reunion that was long overdue.

Pidge wished they were able to see him again.

The guards told Pidge that they'll see him soon. Soon they'll see him.

The guards carry Pidge from their cell to a room with a metal door they had never seen before. Matt was sitting in the room, chained to a pole. An empty pole stood next to him. That one was for themself, Pidge guessed.

"Katie!" Matt yelled when he saw them. His chains rattled when he pulled at them, trying to run to Pidge. He had a scar on his left cheek, and tears streaming down his face.

"Pidge," Pidge corrected him. The whole situation hadn't registered in Pidge's mind yet, they were still in shock.

"What?!" he shook his head at Pidge, incredulously. How could his little sister be here?!

"I go by Pidge now. Pretty cool, right?" A group of guards lined up in front of the Holt siblings, the guards each aim the guns in their hands at Pidge, ready to fire on command.

"What?!" Matt repeats. He'd finally been reunited with his sister and it was in a situation like this? What was wrong with Pidge?!

"Yeah. I found out I'm agender. Also I'm dating Shiro. He's really cool, isn't he?" A loud noise sounded on the other side of the door. A chorus of gunshots and yelling followed it closely afterwards.

"Pidge?" Matt asked, still confused. What the fuck was going on?

"Mhm." The door flew into the room, squishing a guard against the wall, a few drops of blood landed on Pidge's cheek as their eyes widened, understanding of their situation finally dawning over them. "Matt?" Pidge asked quietly.

"Pidge!" Shiro's voice was all that anyone could hear for a moment, time seeming to stop. Pidge spotted him, along with the rest of their team running into the room, yelling and gunshots following them.

"Shiro?" Pidge yelled in horror, tears beginning to stream down their face, their eyes locking with Shiro's. A deafening noise filled the room as the guards all fired their guns at once.


	9. Chapter 9

It had been roughly ten years since Pidge died. For the first year, every night Shiro's mind was plagued with the image of Pidge's lifeless body in his arms, blood spilling from their mouth, their body sporting multiple bullet wounds. He had been to see a total of six therapists before he found one that he liked, Slav. Sure, he could be very annoying at times, but he was still by far the best he'd been to see.

The next two years Shiro spend finding himself, he traveled the world, and had as much fun as he could. Then he decided to go to college. He spent the next four years working on going through and getting a masters in astrophysics. While he wasn't able to ever return to space, he was still interested in it. Three years later and Shiro was a world renown astrophysicist. He had a small studio apartment where he painted to keep his mind working, his paintings weren't for the public though. They mostly landscaped of the month he'd spent in the desert with his friends.

Shiro was doing okay, and so were his friends. They all knew that Pidge only wanted them all to be happy, so that's what they were. For a while it was pretend and they were all just doing it for each other's sakes, but a decade later and it was genuine now.

Hunk had a girlfriend, Shay, who he had met about three years back, Keith and Lance were still dating, Allura was with her girlfriend, Plaxum, who she had met over a year back. Shiro decided that he'd prefer to be single, he felt much happier that way.

That day, was Lance, Keith, Hunk and Shay's joint wedding. The four of them commonly went on double, sometimes even triple with Allura and Plaxum, dates. After waiting for so long, Lance and Keith were finally getting married. It was even cuter with Hunk and Shay being married as well.

Matt had been invited to the wedding and after party, him and Shiro talked until finally Matt said that he should go talk with his parents. Shiro had been to see Sam and Colleen Holt numerous times, once to announce Pidge's death, and more times to hang out. Shiro was part of their family.

When Shiro got to the Holt household with Matt, Colleen pulled Shiro aside and said, "I know you and Pidge were together, so I thought that you'd like to have some of their stuff."

"I'm sorry, what do you mean?" Shiro asked, not following why Colleen was offering him her dead kid's stuff.

"Pidge has been gone for some time now, and I figured it was finally time to make use of their bedroom. We're going to turn it into a computer room, so we've decided to get rid of some of their stuff. I thought you'd like to have a look through their stuff.

Shiro agreed and went up to Pidge's bedroom, feeling a bit awkward. "Their things are in those few boxes," Colleen called, heading back down to the livingroom where Matt and Sam were chatting happily. Shiro opened one of the boxes to find Pidge's technology things. He couldn't think of a reason why he would want any of it really so he moved onto the next box. The next box was a box of Pidge's clothes, pre-transition, of course. Shiro _really_ didn't want any of those.

The last box was pull of miscellaneous objects, one at the very bottom a green spiral notebook reading, "DIARY," in black sharpie. Shiro picked it up carefully and began to flip through it.

_April 3_

_I can't believe dad and Matt are leaving on my birthday this blows. It's my sweet 16 and all I get is a load of bye guys I'll see you again in six months. I think mom cried herself to sleep, I'm not sure how to help her._

_May 17_

_Dad and Matt have been calling everyday. It's really funny how we were able to rig up a cell tower last minute. I kind of just wish I could see their faces._

_June 21_

_They didn't call today, mom and I are really worried._

Shiro slowed with flipping through the pages to read these next few passages.

_June 22_

_Ther still haven't called._

_June 23_

_We just heard the news, Matt and dad are gone as well as the other guy they were with. They sometimes told stories about him, he seemed really cool but idk him. I miss dad and Matt._

Shiro started to flip quickly again.

_September 2_

_I started school today. Everybody treats me really weirdly._

_October 26_

_I've been hacking into the computers here looking for information. I think I might have something._

_December 11_

_I was expelled today. I guess I'd gotten onto one too many computers for the Garrison's liking._

_January 30_

_Mom's been really depressed ever since dad and Matt went "missing". She doesn't ever move from the couch, I'm not sure how to help her._

_February 9_

_I've decided to sneak into the Garrison as a guy. I need to keep looking for dad and Matt._

_March 1_

_Nobody cares about me now. Life is much easier as a boy._

_April 3_

_This is my first time celebrating my birthday alone._

_May 28_

_I'm onto something. I found Shiro today, now I've been expelled from the Garrison twice. I think I'm starting to dread the idea of ever being a girl. I never really thought about it before, but being a girl isn't me. I'm not sure how I like being a boy either. I'm going to have to look into this._

Shiro slowed again to read this part, there was only about four more pages...

_May 30_

_Lance and Keith are crushing on each other. It's really funny. Shiro and I kissed, I really like him a lot. I also came out as nonbinary to everyone. They all accepted me which was a great feeling._

_June 7_

_Shiro and I aren't officially dating yet, but we have kissed a lot._

_June 11_

_I think I'm in love with him._

_June 16_

_Just 16 more days and then we go get Matt. I'm so excited!_

_June 20_

_Keith let us name his four chickens that didn't have names. I think it was because Lance started crying at one point because Keith hadn't named them. I named mine Rover, Lance named one Cena and another Maria, while Hunk named his Buddy. Apparently Shiro named Tsubasa._

_June 26_

_We've all been busy training and getting as ready as we can be. I don't think I'll be able to sleep for a week._

_June 31_

_Just two more days._

_July 1_

_Tonight Shiro and I made it official, we're dating now. I really am in love with him._

That was the last entry in Pidge's diary... Shiro had to close it so he didn't cry, the pain of Pidge's death had become a dull ache years ago, but sometimes when something like this happened, it hit home.

Shiro was okay. Everyone else way okay. Pidge was... probably doing okay in Heaven. Or Hell. If Heaven was a real place then Pidge was probably not there, Shiro smiled to himself as he set the notebook down and went to join his family.

That night, when Shiro was getting ready to go to sleep in his apartment, he couldn't help but feel like Pidge was there, cheering him on for being happy.


End file.
